For both economic and ecological reasons it is viewed as desirable to reclaim and recycle building materials. A large number of buildings are constructed of concrete or masonry construction. It is technically feasible to reclaim concrete or masonry waste during the demolition or construction of a building. The concrete or masonry waste is crushed to form a gravel-like aggregate and then recycled by mixing with minimum amounts of cement and sand. The resulting crushed aggregate is used to form a new concrete building material. Tests performed on the resulting concrete indicate that it is of superior strength. This is viewed as being due to a cement residue in the recycled gravel-like aggregate.
The reclaiming of the large chunks of concrete or masonry waste recovered during the demolition or construction of a building is performed at a crushing plants. These crushing plants consist of a plurality of crushers. The large chunks of concrete or masonry waste are reduced to an appropriate aggregate size as a result of processing through a series of crushers. Each crusher in the crushing sequence is only capable of reducing the size of a chunk of concrete or masonry waste by a set maximum percentage, usually 1/6 to 1/4.
The need for processing through a series of crushers has made it difficult for on site processing through the use of a mobile crushing plant. In the absence of mobile crushing equipment capable of processing large chunks of concrete or masonry waste, the concrete or masonry waste must be trucked for processing off site. The transportation costs involved in hauling large chunks of concrete or masonry waste to a remote crushing plant and the recycled aggregate back destroys the economic benefits of recycling.